Shadows of Light
by tiger002
Summary: Ellie was content to live a normal life in Jackson, burring the doubts she had about Joel. But when the Fireflies are spotted nearby, she looks to the light to find her answers.


**Chapter 1: A Spark of Light**

Ellie froze hearing the soft sounds of whispering echoing against the metal hallways of the main building. She stopped walking, pressed herself up against the wall out of habit, even reaching for her gun that she didn't have with her to take out what her body instinctively thought were an enemy. _'Right, I'm safe here',_ she mouthed to herself. She was in Jackson. Listening closer, she could hear the voices were that of Joel and Tommy. No one to be afraid of. She even took a step forward, her heart slowing back down, thinking she should say hi to him, welcoming Joel back from his overnight patrol, and giving him a hard time for skipping their guitar lesson the night before.

But then she heard a word that she could never forget among the nearly inaudible whispers.

"You sure they were Fireflies?" Tommy was a bit louder this time. Not enough so that anyone further away could hear it, but Ellie's keen hearing made it impossible to mistake. She edged closer to the door ensuring her footsteps were silent, so she could hear the rest of the conversation.

"No doubt about it." This time the voice was Joel. Ellie heard the sound of Joel's backpack being dropped on the ground behind them. "They were using the same codewords that you learned from Marleen."

And now Ellie's heart was racing again. It didn't matter how much time had passed, the feeling of dread never seemed to leave Ellie. Sure, she had settled into a routine while living in Jackson. She was free from the danger of the infected, along the various bandits and whoever decided they should try killing her. She was safe, well fed, had a bed and even electricity without needing to fight with the generator every couple hours.

But despite everything that was good, she couldn't shake the feeling that this was only temporary.

And now hearing Joel talk about the Fireflies, it brought her back into the fight or flight mode. She even grasped her switchblade for a moment, before remembering better.

"Did you make contact?" Tommy asked, keeping his voice down again. Obviously this is something he wanted to keep from the rest of the community.

"Nah, just listened to them. They might have known we were nearby from the flashlights before we got close."

"It would be best to just avoid them," Tommy then said. "But with Jackson built along the river, they'll probably find us before long." Ellie could hear Tommy putting his hands on the table and let out a sigh. "I don't want a fight with the Fireflies Joel. It wouldn't be right for any of us."

"Do you think they'll give us a choice?" Joel asked.

Ellie couldn't help but wonder what had happened last time they met the Fireflies. She knew that there was something more to what Joel told her. But she'd tried to burry those questions, not wanting to let her doubts get in the way of her life here. As Joel and Tommy kept talking, she started backed away from the door. She didn't' care about the plan for peace of war or whatever they decided.

Instead Ellie had something else on her mind.

Answers.

…

Ellie was in a trace as she made her way to the meal hall. How she could get away from Jackson, find the Fireflies, get answers from them. Assuming they knew. Which they probably did. Maybe Marleen would be there and could fill her in. And maybe that was the reason they were here. If Joel had lied about them giving up on a cure, then maybe they wanted her for that, they found out that she and Joel came to Jackson.

She was plagued with these thoughts as she sat down to a plate of food in front of her.

"Whoa, someone's out of it today."

"Huh? She asked, turning to the source of the voice, which was Jess, one of the other kids she'd gotten to know in the community.

"That's my seat and my food. Come on, move."

She looked back at the food and then realized it was very strange for her to already have food at her seat without going to get it herself. "Oh shit, sorry," she said getting up in a hurry, but as she did so, she tripped on the leg of chair. She tried to stabilize herself, taking a few steps before falling very ungracefully to the ground

"You doing okay Ellie?"

"Yeah, just didn't sleep well," Ellie said, resting her head on the ground for a moment, trying to calm herself down. She didn't to talk about what she'd heard, or what she was planning. Sure, Jess was nice, and Ellie liked having a friend close to her age here. They'd gotten along well after getting paired up on one of Ellie's first shift. But she wasn't ready to trust Jess with what she was thinking. There was just too much going through her head to want to voice any of it, and especially to someone who she didn't know that well.

"Sure you'll be okay to work today? Those hammers really hurt if you hit your finger. That or dropping a bag of cement on Blake's foot, at least according to him," Jess said.

"Yeah I'll be fine," Ellie said getting up and going to get her food. As she did so, she reminded herself to ask for that story about Blake. Apparently he and Jess didn't get along at first, but they ended up dating. Ellie didn't quite understand the need for romance when she was happy just to live in a safe community, but to each their own.

She got her food and then sat down across from Jess, though was still mostly lost in thought about what she was going to do about the Fireflies. If anything. Maybe this was just some stupid idea and she would have been best just forgetting about everything she had heard and let the adults handle it and trust them. "Hey, you don't need to worry," Jess said. "If there's something going on, we can help."

"I know, but it's nothing. I just need to get used to this place I guess." Another lie. But one that made things easier for her. Maybe that's why Joel lied, to make things easier, to smooth out the situation. To avoid a conflict that didn't need to happen. "Hey Jess?"

"What up?" Jess responded, though with some food still in her mouth that she nearly chocked on.

"Thanks, I really do appreciate everything. I guess sometimes I get used to being alone that I forget that there's a family here as well." Was that some sort of corny last line speech that she was giving her friends before she went to fight the final battle? Maybe she needed to put the comics down for a bit. But she did mean it. And as the plan continued brewing in her head, she really hoped those wouldn't in fact be her last words to Jess.

 **A/N:** Welcome to my first Last Of Us multi-chapter fic. I finished playing the game a couple weeks ago, and it really stuck with me. I love these characters, especially Ellie, and the game left enough things unanswered to make me want to explore them through fanfiction. This takes place after the events of the game, and also the epilogue shown during the One Night Live musical. This is somewhat a sequel to the one-shot I posted around a week ago, Do You Trust Him. I consider that one-shot part of my head-cannon, though I don't think I'll directly reference it here. I also don't have a firm plan for the rest of the story and by that I mean I have basically no idea where this is going. Well I have one idea, and I've been listening to power metal to get ideas so we'll see where this goes. Also, Jess and Blake are OCs. Not sure if they'll have a major role, but we'll see how it goes.


End file.
